Victoria Toensing is a private practice lawyer. How would she know if Plame was covert?

[spanone]

Yesterday, in front of a House committee and the entire American populace, she told the world that Valerie Plame was NOT covert. How does a private citizen come upon such information?

I'm aware that Ms. Toensing was a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration. That was many years ago.

Although Ms. Toensing has been a mouthpiece for the right-wing, she is not privy to classified information.

[babylonsister]

1. Because Hannity and Rush told her so?

:shrug:

[spanone]

3. I ALWAYS miss the obvious, dammit. If I would watch more Faux I'd be more englightened.

:toast:

[HereSince1628]

2. She apparently wrote the law directed at punishing leakers

of covert identities so she "knows" everthing. However, a reading of the actual law leads me to believe that Toensing has suffered from cognative impairment.She longer recalls with any precision the words she actually wrote. Possibly that resulted from all the shrill shreaking she did over the last decade on the cable not news shows?

[spanone]

5. Helping to write a law in 1982 gives her no security clearance in 2007.

[HereSince1628]

9. no shit, The GOP members of Waxman's committees scraped up what they could

to get an opposing view presented.

Toensing either doesn't remember what she wrote, or purposefully lied to the committee about the criteria used to determine the meaning of covert. Either way, she had no credibility and Waxman didn't let that pass unnoticed.

[A wise Man]

7. She says that she help frame the law

yet when ask what participation or input, she can't recall. If she worked under Goldwater, she would have been in her early twenties. The best input she could have had was to have typed it.

[HereSince1628]

12. apparently someone else typed the phrase about 'or been out of the country

on covert assignments in the past 5 years.'

Toensing is a rightwing shill and her performance guaranteed she'd make another couple hundred thousand in the next month spewing shit about debunking Plame's status. The rightwing pays big bucks for this propaganda and their minions eat the shit up.

[A wise Man]

15. Waxman said that

he will check the statements she made about her helping to frame the law. She better come up with a better excuse for lying if he finds out that she did.

[July]

38. There has to be a little information about who worked on this out there.

It wasn't that long ago.

It would be interesting to hear what others who helped craft the law thought, and what public figures (Goldwater?) had to say about it.

[A wise Man]

46. Her reply OOPS SORRY!!

She didn't know Goldwater was Dead.

[Raven]

4. She was splitting hairs and spouting legalese

and I was really surprised that the Repubs had her speak. She was awful, obnoxious and just as mean as a snake. She made quite a contrast with Plame who was low key but forceful, fully composed and respectful of the committee.

[H2O Man]

6. She is a paid liar.

A repulsive human being who feels she has the right to purposefully lie to congress.

[spanone]

8. I think she truly pissed off Waxman. Her obvious disdain for the hearings was palpable.

I loved it when Larry Johnson called her a twit on Hardball last night!

He was much too kind.

[Jim Sagle]

24. He did fine, he was only off by one vowel.

;)

[ShortnFiery]

55. Oh yeah, I caught that live too!

Very nice! :applause:

However, Vicky was not upset as Hannity had her on a pedestal last night on FOX Cable News. :eyes:

My Gawd! Hannity lauded her ad nauseum ... I had to turn the channel in 5 minutes. :puke:

[HereSince1628]

14. The money she's paid is justification that she has something to sell

This is the world of free-market politics. Lies make more money that truth.

[notadmblnd]

40. you know, I think that's what bothers be most about this cabal

their freaking sense of entitlement and their arrogance. It boggles the mind.

[KharmaTrain]

10. That's A Great Question To Explore

This oxygen thief has been shooter her piehole about how Plame "wasn't covert" and it was "the law that I wrote"...all being used by the wingnut mouthpieces as "justification" for Plame's leaking to be "ok". Waxman was wise to let her testify as she bound herself up with contradictions and more questions that should be investigated further.

Besides the various parses that can easily been seen as purjury (but the chances of a prosecution coming from this is rare), but there was one questtion that nagged at me as I saw Toe-sucking's spinning...the same question you posed. "How did she know". Was Vicky privy to sensative government operatives who passed along this information to her? Did she have a mole within the CIA that provided her with information none of us, including Fitzgerald, Judge Walton and the CIA have proven Plame was not just covert, but a NOC.

I'm enjoying the blogs ripping these lies, deceptions and exposing this fraud. She's been given far too much credibility and hopefully this will expose her as being an extreme party partisan and "gun for hire". Let's have some fun...how did Vicky know all she knows and who are her sources. She's not a journalist...she's testified in a public hearing under oath saying these things...now let's investigate and see how valid her claims are.

[barbtries]

67. i just sat through

the hearing in its entirety, and the panel ripped her to shreds; in fact the final exchange involved waxman basically telling her straight up that since she had testified to lies, they were keeping the record on her testimony open. she was absolutely discredited and the bush whores looked so damn bad (which they are of course, really really BAD). they also made the "security" experts look incredibly lame. no one comes out and says what it is though and i find that so frustrating.

[Cass]

11. Excellent point. I wondered that myself.

Did anyone ask her that yesterday during the hearing? (I missed a good part of her testimony.)

[OnyxCollie]

45. The good part of her testimony was when she shut the hell up.

;-)

[Spazito]

58. Actually, yes, one of the panel members DID ask her how

she knew and whether she had information the panel AND the CIA did not given the CIA had vetted the chair's opening statement saying V. Plame's status was classified at the time of the Novak article and STILL classified yesterday.

She huffed and puffed and went back in time to her Goldwater days, etc.

She came off as an arrogant, unintelligent buffoon, imo.

[Cass]

61. Thanks, Spazito. I'm glad someone questioned her about her claims.

She really is a piece of work.

[speedoo]

13. It's a House committee.

The great Mr. Waxman and his outstanding Dem colleagues are members of the House, not the Senate.

[Sadie5]

17. What about that weasel husband

Joe something or another? Doesn't he work for Bush occasionally as a mouthpiece. You can bet that her info had something to do with him.

[spanone]

19. sorry. I'm sure she'd be proud to lie to the senate too.

...as long as it was chaired by Democrats.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. She knew it because she heard it at a D.C. cocktail party. The

sources are impecable. When you're reaching for an hors d'oeuvres, you don't ask them to repeat what was just said under oath. Bad form.

BTW Wikopedia (I know, I know) indicates that VT believed she was being harassed by the Clinton WH.

Although Ms. Toensing has been a mouthpiece for the right-wing, she is not privy to classified information.
Well, she wasn't supposed to be privy . . . but y'know, people talk at cocktail parties.

[SutaUvaca]

18. I watched her testimony yesterday

and she stated that she worked on the first draft of that law. She never did admit to not working on the final version (or testifying that she did work on the final version). She DID, though, freely offer to interpret what Goldwater intended (presumably with the final version that became law). She never said anything that didn't dovetail with the *Co agenda that was apparent in the hearing - namely,to blame the whole mess on the CIA.

She never even directly answered Waxman's direct question of "How do YOU KNOW these things you're presenting as foregone conclusions? Do you have information that we and the CIA do not have?

And I hated the way she flapped her hands around.

[vanlassie]

20. Try to catch the end or her testimony

Waxman said (all paraphrasing)
"I think you have stated several things here that are not true, so we are going to hold the record open in order to correct those statements." (At which point her mouth dropped open.)

Then he said something to the effect that "You were involved in something 30 years ago... but- thanks for coming here today." To which she replied "Now don't date me- I was only 25 at the time!" And Waxman replied "Well, we'll have to verify that, too..."

Hahahahahahaha. She looked like she had swallowed something sour after that exchange- which was the final word in the discussion. You have to see it. Waxman does not suffer fools gladly.


vanlassie

[spanone]

25. Henry was pissed.

[IndyOp]

31. Pissed and, yet, coooool... I loved it when he said that the Committee would

be checking into her statement that it was only 25 years ago (and not 30) when she had helped draft the bill. He was smiling and laughing with/at her - supremely confident and coooooool...

[tblue37]

34. Funny pic--but that dog is so handsome! (eom)

[WinkyDink]

21. The GOP, IMHO, believe that VT is some kind of brilliant media star, and that

this sharp-tongued harridan with TV fame and "serious" hair would be the perfect female counterpart to destroy the blonde who could speak only circumspectly.

VT clearly acted not as a serious witness, but as a performer, gesticulating, smirking, telling anecdotes, attempting banter, being sarcastic and defiant.

I hope Waxman puts her in her perjurious place.

[spanone]

22. a little background

Name a high-profile investigation in this city and chances are the prosecutorial pair is involved.

Charges that Republican Rep. Dan Burton improperly demanded campaign contributions from a lobbyist for Pakistan? DiGenova and Toensing are the Indiana congressman's personal attorneys.

Newt Gingrich's ethics problems? Toensing represents the speaker's wife, Marianne, to ensure her compliance with House ethics rules.

A House committee investigation of the Teamsters and the union's links to improper Democratic fund-raising? DiGenova and Toensing are leading the probe as outside counsel.

(And don't shortchange Toensing's role. When the newspaper Roll Call ran an unflattering piece about conflict-of-interest charges related to the couple's hiring, Toensing denounced the reporter as a sexist for leaving her out of the first few paragraphs. "I'm just as big as he is!" she shouted at an editor. Toensing says now that "they pretended I didn't quite exist. They attributed my client to Joe. I've had to deal with this all my life as a woman.")

The couple's Teamsters probe for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has made them a lightning rod for Democratic criticism. First there was grumbling that their official role would conflict with their work for other clients, such as the American Hospital Association, for whom they are registered lobbyists. Then the Democrats charged that diGenova and Toensing couldn't be doing much on their $300,000-a-year contract -- which requires each lawyer to put in 80 hours a month -- since they spent so much time in television studios trashing President Clinton in the Lewinsky case.

They were also REGULARS on the Geraldo Rivera show during the Clinton/Lewinsky bullshit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/couple022798.htm

[ellacott]

23. She testified that she had not met with Plame or the CIA

So she doesn't even know if Plame's job did fit in that category.

[solara]

29. Even if she had met with them, they would have just given her

the cover story they give everyone without security clearance, like reporters and ignorant private sector lawyers who worked for Goldwater 30 years ago. - "Nah, Ms. Plame only has a desk job here"

VT has no security clearance and without security clearance she has no need to know, therefore she would have been told nothing.

INVESTIGATE IMPEACH INDICT INCARCERATE :patriot:

[Error]

26. Toensing is a covert CIA agent

The key propagandists are CIA "Assets"...

Think about it. Do you think the CIA can afford to not control those positions?

[tblue37]

36. I doubt it. The CIA is pissed at BushCo's outing of one

of their key operatives. If she were working for the CIA, they would keep her on a tighter rein and not let her spout such nonsense.

[A wise Man]

47. Don't forget

It was the CIA that requested an investigation. Victoe-ass seem to have forgotten that.

[emulatorloo]

27. She was giving a very narrow "legal definition" based on a law she helped write -- but I think her

legal definition was too narrow and wrong -- she is a paid Bushco operative.

[spanone]

28. She would have to know the details of Plames work to conclude anything.

If these details are classified, Ms. Toensing would know no more than you or I. Supposedly.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

37. It bothered me that not one on of Reps. asked here where she got her information from. They asked if

she heard it from a couple of specific sources but not directly as to who she did get Plame's exact qualifications or non-qualifications for the criminal statute.

[WinkyDink]

54. Typical Bushite equivocator. E.g., "Habeas corpus" isn't a RIGHT; it can only NOT be abridged.

E.g., "signing statements" can over-ride the passed law. E.g., "augmentation" is not an escalation. E.g., the PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." was not a warning, but a "historical" document.

[bluedog]

30. did she also say she had an Covert Agent

for a client?

[mwb970]

32. Her testimony was repulsive, wasn't it?

I found her to be extremely annoying in her attitude. Although I had not seen her before, I knew she was a wingnut within seconds of tuning in, just by her appearance and tone of voice. Boy, was I right.

[spanone]

33. These people (the republicons) haven't had to answer to anyone for six years.

They have not only perfected their ability to lie, they have forgotten what being 'under oath' means.

[LibDemAlways]

43. Apparently she was only there because Waxman

was fair-minded enough to allow the repukes on the committee to bring forth a witness - even if she was an obvious shill and walking repuke talking-point.

[spanone]

44. Brilliant of Mr. Waxman to show just how low these enablers will stoop.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. I think they were playing her 'expert witness' role

to confuse the issue. She wouldn't know Plame's status. The CIA and Plame knew Plame's status and they have both indicated that she was a covert agent. Toensing very carefully confused her authority as one of the authors of the original law with her opinion about Plame's status.

[Kingshakabobo]

39. It depends what the meaning of "covert-is-is" or "leak-is-is." n/t

[goodhue]

41. She doesn't. But she plays an expert on TV.

[spanone]

42. That's the best answer so far.....I think she truly hurt whatever 'cause' she was advancing.

Her shrill disdain for the committee chairs and her attitude seemed to really get under Waxman's skin. I know I wanted to beat the living shit out of her.

[starroute]

48. Maybe via the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Toensing is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies -- see http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1475 -- a neocon group whose founder and president is Clifford May.

May, in turn, is someone who was trying to discredit Joe Wilson in his National Review column for July 11, 2003 (http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may071103.asp) -- three days before Plame was outed by Robert Novak -- where he accused Wilson of such heinous crimes as believing that "neoconservatives" have "a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party."

Then on September 29, 2003, just three days after the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate the Plame leak -- May had another column (http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200309291022.asp), in which he boasted that "I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson" and went on to say:

On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

On July 11, I wrote a piece for NRO arguing that Mr. Wilson had no basis for that conclusion — and that his political leanings and associations (not disclosed by the Times and others journalists interviewing him) cast serious doubt on his objectivity.

On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

I chose not to include it (I wrote a second NRO piece on this issue on July 18) because it didn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson should be regarded as a disinterested professional who had done a thorough investigation into Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium in Africa.

I have long wondered about Clifford May's role in the Plame affair -- and have been surprised that he never got caught up in the investigations -- but it seems very likely to me that whoever May is getting his "information" and directions from is providing them to Toensing as well.

[here_is_to_hope]

49. I cant figure out why

she was invited to the festivities...no cred, no current place in the scheme of things and she lied.
Hmmph.

[spanone]

50. I believe the minority party invited her and Waxman was smart enough to let her hang herself.

[A wise Man]

52. Because she had to be challenged

She's been going around the media circuit spreading that analogy of hers that Valerie wasn't covert from, FOX, MSN and CNN. I'm glad they brought her in, so that she can make a fool of herself as she did.

[alcibiades_mystery]

51. She wouldn't

Which also insulates her from perjury charges when she spouts her nonsenses that are both immaterial and without substance. She was requested by the GOP members of the committee. But she is a know-nothing and had no business in the hearing. Essentially, she has a "theory." Her theory is that somebody must actually be on something she imagines to be a "covert assignment" at the time that the identity exposure happens. Needless to say, there is no such thing as a "covert assignment," just covert status, and covert status does not map on to any given "covert assignment."

Think about it this way: A cop is undercover. Toensig thinks the law only applies if his identity is exposed while he is undercover rather than while he is performing his ordinary work in between field undercover operations. That's Toensig's position. Needless to say, it is an outrageous, and even profoundly stupid argument. You know all the times that you see undercover cops on TV with their identities protected. Imagine a television show agreed to protect the identity, but didn't, and publicized the cop's face. For Toensig, this would be perfectly fine if he was between undercover assignments, since he wasn't on an assignment at the time. That's her argument; that's her reading of the law.

Needless to say, if a television station did somet5hing like this, that cop would never be able to go undercover again. All the contacts that the cop has made as his cover identity would be compromised, and all the training and expense put forth to develop the undercover identity wasted. This is the crux of the issue. Plame's cover was destroyed for ANY FUTURE OPERATIONS, regardless of what she was doing when she was at Langley. For Toensig, this doesn't matter. She wasn't "in the field" at the time. That her prospects of gathering any further material "in the field" has been destroyed, and that any contacts she had "in the field" previously had been compromised...none of this matters to Toensig. This is a deeply dishonest argument. If the law IS written that way, then it is an outrageously stupid law. If this is the narrowest reading of it, then Toensig is intellectually dishonest, a partisan hack masquerading as an expert. Without question, had the situation been reversed, and a covert status agent exposed while between covert assignments by a Democratic President, Toensig would be before Congress arguing for a TREASON indictment in addition to the full application of the IIPA. She's a flack and a liar.

[WinkyDink]

57. She's not heard of Cmdr. James Bond, who doesn't cease to be 007

when he's at dinner in London!

Why, yes, he's fictional, just like VT's knowledge of VP!

[alcibiades_mystery]

59. That's correct

She cannot possibly be as stupid as that. She's construing the language in an extremely narrow way for political purposes. This narrow reading would put the entire intelligence community at risk, since for Toensing, any agent is fair game so long as he or she is not on assignment at the time.

[bridgit]

53. she's just sputtering semantics...

[BlackVelvet04]

56. If she wasn't covert she wouldn't have had the cover

employment at Brewster Jennings & Associates.

[rocktivity]

60. DING DING DING! BlackVelvet04, you're our grand prize winner!

If she wasn't covert she wouldn't have had the cover employment at Brewster Jennings & Associates.

How can you not be covert if you have false employer? Maybe "DUH! DUH! DUH!" would be more appropriate!

:headbang:
rocknation

[spanone]

62. ..only TWO republicans on the House Committee even cared enough to be present.

and they accuse the democrats of politics. Washington is broken. IMHO.

[Hepburn]

63. You know...

...I am a lawyer, too....a female lawyer matter of fact. And maybe I should not have been embarrassed by Toensing ~~ but I was. She came off like every bad joke I have ever had to endure about female lawyers. I started practicing a lot of years ago before there were a lot of "us" doing crim defense work. It was a man's area ~~ and we got told about it a lot! Like....shouldn't we be doing wills and trusts or be over in the family law court?

I don't care if VT all by herself authored that law. The law is ONE thing ~~ the facts that support or do not support it are another. VT made a complete and total ass out of herself in giving a legal opinion on something about which she has -0- facts. Well, if you call "facts" the false bilge that the RW talking heads spew ~~ but to base a LEGAL opinion on that? IMO, unethical as all hell. She had -0- verifiable facts which were independently found from legitimate sources. It is one thing to argue about the interpretation of facts ~~ but have none and argue a point of law on one side or the other? No way!

Lawyers have to abide by the Rules of Professional conduct. And most bars have a general rule which states that one cannot mislead a tribunal. By the use of the term tribunal ~~ the reference is to more than just being in court as to where this rule applies. For VT to make that allegation that the law does NOT apply to Plame and give it as a LEGAL opinion, IMO, she was misleading a tribunal which was investigating the matter. Someone needs to file a bar complaint on her...assuming the bar under which she is licensed has a rule like this which applies to tribunals and most likely it does.

[Iceburg]

64. Would you consider this statement misleading or perjury ...

Background: I did a little poking around on the net and found her resume on her website http://www.digenovatoensing.com/attorneybiosvt.htm

The resume states:

"While Chief Counsel for Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1981-1984, Toensing was instrumental in winning passage of two important bills:
(1) to protect the identities of intelligence agents and
(2) to protect certain classified information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act."

Thus on her professional resume she claims to have been instrumental in winning passage of the IIAP, and at Waxman's Oversight Hearing she claims to have WRITTEN THE LAW...

(Excerpt from the transcript)
Waxman: “How could you say that? How could you say she wasn't covert?”

Toensing: “Well, because she wasn't. I wrote the statute.”

Waxman: “I'm not asking for your credentials.”

Toensing: “Well, my credentials are how I know. I wrote the law. She was not covered by the law.”

As a layperson, it seems to me that "writing the law" versus "lobbying for passage of a law" are two very different activities analogous to the difference between "designing a house" and "selling a house" and that even a bottom-rung law student would not make the mistake of using the terms interchangeably.

I believe that the ever boastful and lime-light seeking moth VT would have used the more prestigious role of author over lobbyist on her public resume if it were true...I think little Ms.LieFactory just got caught up in her own web of deceit during the heat of the hearing.

[rocktivity]

66. Toensing specifically said, "I wrote the law?"

Not "I co-wrote the law" or "I helped write the law?" Then she definitely purjured herself...unless she's also written a law that redefines perjury!

Wikipedia: In 1981, she became Chief Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where she helped draft the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

Washington Times: "There is not one fact that I have seen that there could be a violation of the agent identity act," said Victoria Toensing, a lawyer who helped draft the 1982 act...

The New York Times: Ms. Toensing helped draft the law protecting the identity of intelligence agents years ago. She continued to insist today that under the act, Mrs. Wilson was not a “covert” agent...

Media Matters:...Toensing was apparently referring to a law she helped draft as chief counsel on the Senate intelligence committee, the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA)...

Newsmax: ...But (Toensing), the former deputy attorney general who helped draft (the) Intelligence Identities Protection Act - which Bush critics insist was violated when Valerie Plame was identified to Novak - said earlier this year that it's unlikely any laws were broken in the case...

Her own freaking official biography: While Chief Counsel for Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1981-1984, Toensing was instrumental in winning passage of...bills to protect the identities of intelligence agents and to protect certain classified information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act...

You can't get a more diverse consensus than that, can you? Happily, there are Daily Kos and the Huffington Post to explain it all for you.

:headbang:
rocknation

[cassiepriam]

65. I wondered the same thing. Who the heck does she think she is?

[gulfcoastliberal]

68. How is it Rove is still directing the "message" of this treason?

I want to know what exactly Rove told Fitzgerald on each of those many calls and trips with his lawyer to the GJ and his office.